News

The Heat Pump Association (HPA) has responded to the government reforms to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), first announced in December 2016.

While the unexpected laying of part of the reform package may have caught many by surprise, Mike Nankivell, President of the HPA, said: “It ensures the continuum of the scheme by ensuring the degression triggers have been revised to take account of growth in the scheme. The increased tariffs for ASHP & GSHP underscore the importance of these technologies in the government’s carbon reduction commitments and makes investment in such technologies attractive to end users and consumers.”

​The revised regulations also introduce heat demand limits intended to reduce the rate of return for ‘large’ heat demand projects. Whilst the HPA did not fully support the limits suggested, the reasons for their imposition is understood. The revised regulations come into effect on 20 September.

For ground source and water source technology, the domestic tariff (p/kWh) is 19.86 (previously 19.44) with a Heat Demand Limit (Gross) of 30,000 kWh.

Non-domesticTariffs have seen inflationary rises. The ASHP tariff increased by inflation (CPR) to 2.61p/kWh and GSHP to 9.09p/kWh (Tier 1, with Tier 2 at 2.71p/kWh).

How do the Heat Demand Limits work?There is some confusion over when and how these changes apply, so some scenarios may assist:

Scenario 1:A Domestic ASHP Project was installed in 2017 and an application for RHI was made on 10 December 2017. The application is accepted and payments will be made at 7.33p/kWh, regularly adjusted for inflation.

Scenario 2:A domestic GSHP project with an EPC of 35,000kWh gross pa and an SCoP of 4.00 made an application to Ofgem for RHI after 16 December 2016, but before 20 September 2017. The application is accepted and payments will be made at 19.44p/kWh for all of the eligible period before 20 September 2017, and 19.86p/kWh thereafter. Payments will be based on the 35,000kWh which is adjusted by the SCoP to reflect the net renewable energy contribution calculated by (1 – 1/SCoP)), which in this case is 0.75; hence 26,250 kWh (35,000 x 0.75) will be eligible.

Scenario 3:In the same scenario as above, the application for the project is made after 20 September 2017. In this case the Heat Demand Limit will come into force and the gross eligible heat demand will be capped at 30,000 kWh. This too will be adjusted for the renewable heat component by the same factor; hence only 22,500 kWh net is eligible for the same payment structure.

Because of the potential increase in tariff for ASHP, but the imposition of a Heat Demand limit, there is clearly a point at which the benefit of one cancels out the increase in the other. Because the increase in tariff is 39% the break-even point is circa 20,000 kWh + 39% i.e. 27,800 kWh.